SNL Kagan: Pay-TV Subs Drop by 1M in 2015

The pay-TV universe lost more than 1.1 million subscribers during 2015, according to SNL Kagan.

Kagan says the 2015 drop was more than four times the 2014 decline and was the third straight year that cable, satellite and telcos combined ended up with fewer customers. Year end, the total number of multichannel subscribers was 96.7 million.

However there were signs that the slide was slowing in the fourth quarter. The drop was just 57,000, with cable subscriptions strong and telcos steady.

Cable MSO lost 599,000 video customers in 2015. But that was cable’s best performance since 2007 and the first decline of less than 1 million subs in seven years.

Satellite lost 478,000 subscribers, compared to a 39,000 loss in 2014. There were 33.1 million satellite customers at the end of the year.

The telcos were essentially flat for the year, with AT&T shifting its focus from U-Verse to DirecTV, Kagan said.